I went to Dr. Greene about two years ago when my physician suspected I might have lymphedema. I went to Boston Children's hospital to get a lymphoscintigraphy test, and then went to see Dr. Greene the next day. He walked into the room, introduced himself and the medical students who were shadowing him, and said that I almost certainly did not have lymphedema and we should do a physical examination to figure out what was going on. I got undressed, and he came back into the small room with his two or three medical students, and asked me to hike the gown up to my waist. He said something like "wow, you have lymphedema!" while chuckling. He then proceeded to use this moment to do a pop quiz for his doctors-in-training. He asked them about what other things they thought I could have, and each of them said what they thought it could be with an heir of arrogant certainty, and with the same tone as if they were betting on a sports game. Dr. Greene then asked them something about how to… distinguish between lipedema and lymphedema, and they said something about symmetry (lymphedema tends to be asymmetrical). He then asked them which of my legs was bigger (I had my gown hiked up this whole time). One of them said "the right leg". The other responded "I don't know, I think the left is bigger." "Are we talking calf or thigh?" "Oh, well the right calf is certainly bigger." And it went on like that for a while as I, a 16 year old, stood there in this tiny room with 3 grown men scrutinizing my body as they lounged on the exam table. Dr. Greene barely addressed me during this whole time, focusing most of his attention on chatting with the student doctors. He did a quick clinical exam of my feet and legs, probably a pitting test and stemmer sign test. He then made me come into another room to have pictures taken of my legs, and then he let me get dressed so we could discuss treatment. He talked a little about compression, pumps, and therapy, and also told me that I could have liposuction, which was a horrible thing to hear as an overweight teenager with body insecurities relating to weight. When we left, I immediately started to cry. The whole appointment was emotionally devastating for several reasons. First, it was really shocking to be told I did not have a medical condition immediately followed by an exaggerated, insensitive, "Holy crap, you've got lymphedema!" and a list of all the diseases you might have. It is a rollercoaster to be told contradicting things about your health by the only person you trust to give you answers for it. It takes time for someone to get used to a chronic medical diagnosis, and it is often a very emotional process, and he seemed pretty oblivious to that. It made me feel like I was just a number or a puzzle to be solved and not a human being trying to figur out what was up with my body. Second, the excessive comments on my body, as if I was just a piece of meat or an object of medical curiosity, felt incredibly dehumanizing and preyed on my worst insecurities about the way my body looked. They also were treating my lymphedema symptoms as some kind of deformity or spectacle, and that made me really uncomfortable and was surprising given that Dr. Greene treats lots of lymphedema patients. Third, the presence of everyone in the small room made me really uncomfortable, and Dr. Greene did a terrible job managing them. The many medical students frequently would fidget and space out, and they rarely addressed me directly when talking about personal things like my possible diagnosis and my physical appearance. None of them seemed to be aware of how vulnerable I was, standing there almost naked in a tiny room with several adult men, and scared about potentially having a disease that I knew nothing about. Doctors need to be aware of how much power they have over patients' emotions, and doing things like asking med students to speculate over a patient's diagnosis while they're standing there or decide which leg is bigger is really disgusting and unprofessional. I am sure that Dr. Greene is a very good surgeon and has been very pleasant with other patients, but my experience was absolutely horrible and borderline traumatic. I really hope Dr. Greene's bedside manner has improved over the years because he is one of the very few resources that lymphedema patients have in this area. Just a last note: everyone else in the office was very friendly, we didn't have to wait too long, and the receptionist was very helpful with any questions we had about paperwork. The only issue was our experience with Dr. Greene himself.
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